Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, February 13, 1996

George Elkins, the Mission Street pawnbroker who over the past 50 years took in chain saws, guitars and watches and gave out money and pawn tickets to those who were down on their luck, has died at the age of 78.

His Prudential Loan Office, at 993 Mission Street, is up for sale or closure -- the family hasn't yet decided. Around Sixth and Mission, where pawn shops and the destitute enjoy a symbiotic relationship, Elkins will be missed.

"He was a soft touch," his nephew, Phil Director, said yesterday, as he took stock of what Elkins had left. "Somebody comes in with a hard luck story and didn't have anything to pawn, he'd give him a couple of bucks."

Elkins was born in San Francisco and graduated from Lowell High School. In 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression, he joined his father's tailor shop at Third and Minna streets. It turned out the younger Elkins was a better trader than tailor, and after he took over the shop, he concentrated on buying and selling clothes, rather than repairing them, Director said.

By 1946, the tailor shop was a pawnshop, and in the early 1960s, when the Third and Minna neighborhood fell to the wrecking ball of urban redevelopment, Elkins moved Prudential Loan to its current site on Mission Street.

He took in everything, from false teeth (worth up to $5 a shot) to welding tank gauges. Many of these items may have been useless to all except those who pawned them.

Stacked in the center of the store are television sets -- some old, some very old -- chop saws, mountain bicycles, old computer printers. In glass cases are wristwatches and Indian jewelry, and nearby are boom boxes, sets of golf clubs and a conga drum ($150 including wire stand).

Around the top perimeter of the room are the pawnshop's stock in trade -- dozens of guitars, some acoustic, some electric, ranging in price from $50 to $1,500.

"A guy would come in and hold up a guitar, and George would say, 'I don't know anything about guitars,' " pawn clerk Adrian Schafganz said. "He'd size the guy up, and then he'd make the loan. They were loans nobody else would make."

Prominently displayed near the giant 50-year-old safe is a sign that says, "NO PRESS LOANS," which doesn't necessarily mean Elkins would refuse money to newspaper people. It means that a customer who has pawned an item cannot come in months later, pay the interest, and get another loan -- piggybacking the loan.

Down Sixth Street, at Jack's Watch Repair, Jack Mish said, "George was a loner. He never married, he never had any children. He lived by himself. Years ago, the pawnshop organization in town would have these annual meetings, annual dinners, and he'd participate, but not much else. Outside the business, he didn't have much of a life.

"Near the end, he was walking slowly," Mish said. "He was sickly. All these things add up. That's about it."

Elkins died February 4 and the funeral was three days later. He leaves a niece, who is married to Director, and a pawn shop.